Virtualize APIs for Better Application Testing Prior Year Content

In today’s interconnected world, APIs are the glue that allows software components, devices, and applications to work together. Unfortunately, many testers don’t have direct access to manipulate the APIs during testing and must rely on either testing the API separately from the application or testing the API passively through functional application testing. Lorinda Brandon maintains that these approaches miss the most important kind of API testing―uncovering how your application deals with API constraints and failures. Lorinda describes common API failures—overloaded APIs, bad requests, unavailabilities, and API timeouts—that negatively impact applications, and how application testers miss these scenarios, especially in third-party APIs. She explores how and when virtualization can and cannot help, including creating a virtual API that can fail. Lorinda discusses the importance of simulating API failures in web and mobile application testing, and identifies tools and technologies that help virtualize your APIs.

In the high tech industry Lorinda Brandon has worked in management roles in customer service, quality assurance, and engineering. She has built and led numerous successful technical teams at companies, including RR Donnelley, EMC, Kayak Software, Exit41, and Intuit. The technical evangelist for API products at SmartBear Software, she is a strong advocate for women in IT, promoting the importance of closing the gender gap for upcoming generations. Follow her on Twitter @lindybrandon.